(i) Field of the Invention:
This invention relates to salts of alkenylsuccinic monoesters having an acrylic or methacrylic acid residue (hereinafter referred to as ((meth)acrylic acid) as a radical-polymerizable group and represented by the formula (I) and/or (II) ##STR2## in which R.sub.1 represents a hydrocarbon group with or without a substituent, R.sub.2 represents a hydrogen atom or a methyl group, A represents an alkylene group having from 2 to 4 carbon atoms, B represents a carbonyl group or a methylene group, M is a monovalent or divalent cation, n is a value ranging from 0 to 100 provided that when B represents a carbonyl group, n is not a value of zero, and m is the number of the ionic valence of M, and also to reactive surface active agent compositions and polymer improvers both comprising the monoester salts.
(ii) Description of the Background:
It is the usual practice to effect the emulsion polymerization reaction using non-reactive surface active agents. In the resulting emulsion, however, the surface active agent does not homogeneously mix with polymer but remains as locally concentrated, so that when the polymer is shaped as a film, the surface active agent is taken in the film. This makes it difficult to obtain a polymer film of uniform quality. It is known that the non-uniform quality of the polymer film gives an adverse influence on various properties such as dyeing property, antistaticity, weatherability, chemical resistance and the like.
In order to overcome the above drawback, there have been developed and used reactive surface active agents which have both groups having the surface activity and polymerizable groups in the molecule thereof. This type of reactive surface active agent not only serves as an emulsifier for monomer, but also is gradually taken in polymer.